The April Creativity Prompt

(If you did that one, drop a note in the comments and gloat over the lesser mortals who didn’t quite get around to it. You know you want to.)

This month we’re approaching the same critter, but with a different net.

Starting today, every day until the next Content Challenge post, go to a social media site and copy some phrases written by your target audience.

Let’s face it; you’re already hanging out there anyway. And while we all definitely want to know what you think about Bulletproof Coffee, you might as well use that time to do some listening, too.

Write down, word for word, what people are saying about your topic. You might find a phrase, a sentence, or a full paragraph … you never know what’s going to show up on a given day.

You’re looking for:

Frustrations

Rants

Questions

Irritations

Failures

Embarrassments

Triumphs

Important: Make sure you label these as someone else’s words when you copy them down. You can use something crazy like quotation marks and the name of the person who originally wrote it. Date each entry, with a note about where you found it.

You don’t want to come back to this in six months, think you wrote these phrases, and accidentally plagiarize someone else’s wording.

These words and phrases are idea seeds for your content — seeds you can grow into blog posts, podcast scripts, and maybe even entire products and services.

Now let’s talk about a productivity tool to help you find those again when you need them.

The April Productivity Prompt

You may have noticed that there’s been something of a resurgence in journaling lately. If you’re ever on Instagram, Pinterest, or YouTube, you may have seen people who keep “bullet journals” — Ryder Carroll’s name for an originally simple set of ways to keep lists and notes.

If you keep a journal like this digitally, and you haven’t tried paper for a while … allow me to suggest that you try it out. There’s something deeply creatively satisfying about an actual object stuffed with ideas — a collection of digital notes just doesn’t spark the same excitement.

A creative journal is a place to capture the sparks that float past. It’s a space to experiment, plan, or just goof around. It’s a home for random thoughts and interesting brainworms. It’s where you store dreams that scare you a little.

Flip through your journal sometimes. (You’ll find yourself doing that automatically when you need a content idea or think of a use for that reference note.)

Those social media phrases you’re finding from our first prompt? Copying them into a blank book would be a great way to kick off a new journal.

A final word on keeping a journal: We might need a word for the folks who keep them, but that word is not journalist. I know I am old-fashioned, but I’m clinging to that one for my friends and colleagues who went to journalism school, have put their time in for lousy pay under intense deadlines, and who have the job of defending democracy from charlatans and lunatics.

What do you think?

Journals are, by nature, intensely personal … and you might have strong opinions about them that conflict with my strong opinions about them. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Let us know in the comments — do you keep a journal? Ever try a bullet journal? What works well for you to wrangle your ideas and find them when you need them?